


You'll Be Okay Too

by urdearestmom



Series: sad kids [2]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, but it sort of does?, it doesn't really make it better, this is a follow-up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-06-15 19:38:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15420108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/urdearestmom/pseuds/urdearestmom
Summary: Nancy hasn’t been to church in years and isn’t even sure if she believes in the religion she was raised with, but she’s going to pray all the prayers she remembers until she can’t anymore.





	You'll Be Okay Too

**Author's Note:**

> this is a follow-up to that sad oneshot i posted a few weeks ago since everyone asked for one :) hope you guys enjoy and if you haven't read the first one please do otherwise this won't make much sense

_**Beep. Beep. Beep.** _

The heart monitor is steady, the complete opposite of Nancy’s own heartbeat as she sits at Mike’s bedside. Hopper had gotten a hold of her as soon as he could and she had taken Joyce’s car to the hospital, promising to update the others in the morning so they could get a few hours of sleep before making their way over as well. She’d sat with the Chief and an especially quiet and morose El for a while until a doctor came into the waiting room and announced, “Michael Wheeler?”

The younger girl had immediately jumped up, desperate to see her boyfriend, but the doctor had stopped her with a “Family only, miss.” She’d slinked back into her seat and Nancy saw tears in her eyes.

“Hey, El, it’ll be fine,” she reassured her. “I’ll check on him and come back in a bit to talk to you guys, okay?”

The other girl sniffed and nodded meekly. Nancy had looked back at the doctor, waiting expectantly to lead her to her brother, and followed him with her heart in her throat.

She’d stayed with Mike for about ten minutes, not really allowing herself time to think about the gravity of the situation, before going back out to the waiting room to relay his condition to El and Hopper, but the two of them weren’t allowed in the room until regular visiting hours started at nine in the morning. It was only four. That led her to her current predicament: sitting in a room alone with her hopefully recovering brother and trying not to cry.

_God._ Nancy’s been told that for now, Mike is stable, but it all depends on whether he makes it through the night or not. She knows the doctors did what they could, and the one who’d spoken to her told her that Hopper’s makeshift tourniquet and speedy trip to the hospital had saved Mike’s life. But it only drives home the fact that he could’ve died tonight. He almost did, if Hopper and El had found him a few minutes after they did it would’ve been too late. And Nancy also knows that she wasn’t the best sister growing up, probably still isn’t, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t love her little brother. If he’d died she would’ve never been able to forgive herself for letting him get so involved in this mess.

(Logically, she’s aware that nothing she could’ve done would’ve stopped him from leaving with El. His heart belongs to her and her only, and everyone knows he’ll follow her to the ends of the earth if he has to. But Nancy has to have someone to blame and usually it’s herself.)

She doesn’t know what she’ll say to their parents to explain this. Mike’s missing an arm, for god’s sake! They don’t even know she’s come back to town, but she guesses it’ll be both a happy and nasty surprise when she calls them later. With that thought, she lays her head on the bed next to where her hand is joined with Mike’s and closes her eyes. Nancy hasn’t been to church in years and isn’t even sure if she believes in the religion she was raised with, but she’s going to pray all the prayers she remembers until she can’t anymore.

She ends up falling asleep and is awoken a little before six by a jerking motion beside her head and the heart monitor next to the bed going crazy. She snaps her head up to see that Mike is awake, but he looks terrified. His breathing is erratic and so is his heartbeat, going by the monitor. Moments later, a pair of nurses rushes into the room. They both start flitting around him, checking all the machines and trying to restrain him.

Nancy watches in shock as her brother’s eyes bulge and his throat works, words struggling to escape. She’s never seen him like this. At this point, he’s just making guttural noises and attempting to push the nurses away, but he can’t do that really well since he hasn’t realized he’s missing half of one of his arms yet. He sees his sister sitting by the bedside and it’s when he registers that it’s her that a raspy, “Nancy,” rips out of his throat.

She stands suddenly and he immediately relaxes, the nurses pushing him back into the mattress. “We need you to stay calm, Michael,” one of them says. “Can you do that for us?”

Mike looks at her and confusion spreads across his face, as if he’s just now noticing that he’s in a hospital. “What am I doing here?”

“Michael-”

His head whips back to Nancy. “Where’s El?”

Nancy’s mouth opens to speak but words don’t come out. He’s just woken up in a hospital with half an arm gone and his concern is his girlfriend. _Of_ course _it is-_

“Where’s El?!” He asks again, voice louder. He’s starting to push back against the nurses again, as if he’s going to get out of the bed and go searching for El himself. “Where- Nancy, _where is she?!_ ”

Nancy doesn’t know why she can’t answer. Her voice suddenly isn’t working. Maybe it’s shock at seeing Mike the way he is right now, disoriented, hurt, and angrier than ever. Maybe her vocal cords just decided to stop functioning. But whatever it is, it isn’t helping. Mike starts screaming, mostly unintelligible words, but Nancy makes out a few very violent “Let me go!"s before the other nurse sticks a needle in his good arm and Mike goes out again.

Her breath returns to her in a sharp gasp and she walks back toward his bed. She hadn’t noticed that she’d stepped away. The first nurse turns to her. "Who’s El?”

Nancy stares at her unconscious brother for a moment before looking up at the woman. “His girlfriend,” she answers, voice stilted.

The nurse raises her eyebrows. “Is she in the waiting room?”

“Yes.” Nancy swallows. “She and her dad are the ones who brought him here. El Hopper,” she adds.

“Martha,” the nurse says, addressing the other one, “Maybe we should go get her? If he wakes up again and she’s not here… I don’t want that happening twice, the strain won’t be good on him.”

Martha nods. “I’ll be right back.” She exits the room quickly, leaving Nancy with the other woman.

“I’ll be by again in about fifteen minutes to give you a rundown, alright?” She says.

Nancy nods numbly and sits back down in her previous seat. Now that Mike’s asleep again, she lets her shock take her over and feels a pricking in her eyes. He woke up, but he could have not. And what would she have done then? She pretends she doesn’t like him most of the time because that’s just how most sibling relationships are, but the truth is that Mike is one of the most important people in her life and a part of her would have died with him.

Moments later, El herself is escorted into the room by Martha and Nancy watches as the teen girl’s eyes widen and fill with water, her hands flying up to cover her mouth. She’s shaking like a leaf during a storm when she stops on the other side of Mike’s bed. Nancy traces the sound through the air when El lets out a loud sob and reaches down to cradle Mike’s face in her hands.

“He’s okay,” she cries. “Oh my god…” Her cheeks are soaked with fresh tears and she leans down to carefully set her head on Mike’s chest as if to hear his heartbeat and confirm that he really is okay.

Nancy feels numb as she sits and watches the two. She knows the amount of love her brother has for the girl in front of her, and she can see that El returns all of it and then some. It would have been a grievous mistake for the universe to rip them away from each other.

El stays like that for a little while longer before standing and walking to Nancy’s side of the bed, where she wraps the older girl in a tight embrace. They clutch each other like the world will end if they let go, seeking an almost unattainable comfort in one another.

El leans away, her face blotchy and wet. “Are you okay?”

Nancy feels even more like she’s going to cry. She gives a hiccupy little laugh. “Why are both of you so concerned with everyone but yourselves?”

El gives her a confused look.

“Mike,” Nancy starts, “He woke up and the only thing he cared about was where you were. I think he was trying to leave to go find you but the nurses stopped him. He didn’t notice that- that his arm’s gone!”

El’s confusion turns to a muted joy for a moment before returning to her previous sadness. “I never should have let him come.”

Nancy reaches up to rub the other girl’s shoulder, trying to offer the consolation she cannot give herself. “It’s not your fault, you know he would’ve followed you as soon as you left. There was nothing you could’ve done.”

El sighs and sinks into the end of the bed, hunching over with her face in her hands. “I know you’re right, but I just… it could have been so much worse, Nancy. You didn’t see him when we found him, he was dying! There was blood- everywhere I looked,” she chokes out. “I’m going to have nightmares for the rest of my life.”

Nancy shakes her head and reaches out for El’s hands to grasp. She focuses on the younger’s eyes intently. They shine brightly with unshed tears but they hold her gaze, so Nancy finds the words she needs to speak. “We’re all going to have nightmares, it’s expected with the things we’ve been through,” she says, rubbing her thumbs across El’s knuckles like she used to spy Mike doing when his love was stressed. “But we’re also all here for you when you need us. Mike might not be in the best shape right now but he will be better, and everyone knows he’s never going to leave you. You’ll both be there for each other because he needs you just as much as you need him. Do you understand?”

El blinks at her and Nancy listens to their breaths suck in and puff out for a moment before El nods. “He’ll get better. We’ll be okay.”

“You will, El,” Nancy says, and somehow the firmness of her statement brings her a slight sense of calm. She’s certain now that it’ll be okay for her too. “It’ll take a while, but one day, you’re going to be so happy that you’ll forget any of this ever happened, even if it’s just for that day.”

“Like grief. It never goes away, you just learn to deal with it and kind of forget it, right?” El asks, now having let go of one of Nancy’s hands and wiped her nose on her sleeve.

Nancy grips her other hand tightly, looking away and feeling the lump rise in her throat again. “Exactly.”

El squeezes back. “You’ll be okay too, Nancy.”

Nancy offers a weak smile. She’ll be okay too.


End file.
